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Several contemporary sources referred to The Scalphunters as screenwriter William Norton’s feature film debut. However, Norton had previously been credited on The Rotten Apple (1963, see entry) and The Farmer’s Other Daughter (1965, see entry). The writer had toiled for many years before meeting with any success, working as a truck driver, a hod carrier, and a park ranger at Morro Bay and William Rogers State Park, the 7 Apr 1967 LAT noted. A young agent submitted his script for The Scalphunters to Levy-Gardner-Laven Productions, who then sent it to Burt Lancaster. After signing on to produce the film, Levy-Gardner-Laven enlisted Norton to work on at least five more scripts, as stated in the 7 Feb 1968 Var. Telly Savalas was announced as Burt Lancaster’s co-star in the 23 Nov 1966 DV, which claimed that filming would take place entirely on location beginning mid-Jan 1967. Savalas and Lancaster had previously acted together in 1962’s Birdman of Alcatraz (see entry).
The start of principal photography was delayed by re-shoots on Lancaster’s previous picture, The Swimmer (1968, see entry), according to a 20 Jan 1967 DV brief. The 26 Jan 1967 DV reported that shooting would begin in Durango and Torreón, Mexico, on 23 Feb 1967, but a 3 Mar 1967 DV production chart later stated that production began earlier, on 15 Feb 1967. Some filming may have taken place in Guaymas, Mexico, where producer Jules Levy and director Sydney Pollack had scouted locations, as noted in the 28 Nov 1966 DV.
United ...
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Several contemporary sources referred to The Scalphunters as screenwriter William Norton’s feature film debut. However, Norton had previously been credited on The Rotten Apple (1963, see entry) and The Farmer’s Other Daughter (1965, see entry). The writer had toiled for many years before meeting with any success, working as a truck driver, a hod carrier, and a park ranger at Morro Bay and William Rogers State Park, the 7 Apr 1967 LAT noted. A young agent submitted his script for The Scalphunters to Levy-Gardner-Laven Productions, who then sent it to Burt Lancaster. After signing on to produce the film, Levy-Gardner-Laven enlisted Norton to work on at least five more scripts, as stated in the 7 Feb 1968 Var. Telly Savalas was announced as Burt Lancaster’s co-star in the 23 Nov 1966 DV, which claimed that filming would take place entirely on location beginning mid-Jan 1967. Savalas and Lancaster had previously acted together in 1962’s Birdman of Alcatraz (see entry).
The start of principal photography was delayed by re-shoots on Lancaster’s previous picture, The Swimmer (1968, see entry), according to a 20 Jan 1967 DV brief. The 26 Jan 1967 DV reported that shooting would begin in Durango and Torreón, Mexico, on 23 Feb 1967, but a 3 Mar 1967 DV production chart later stated that production began earlier, on 15 Feb 1967. Some filming may have taken place in Guaymas, Mexico, where producer Jules Levy and director Sydney Pollack had scouted locations, as noted in the 28 Nov 1966 DV.
United Artists ultimately spent $4 million on the production in Mexico, according to a 9 Jan 1968 DV brief.
The film was scheduled to premiere on 12 Mar 1968 as the opening-night attraction at the newly built Fox South Coast Theater in Costa Mesa, CA. A New York City benefit premiere followed on 2 Apr 1968, raising money for Union Settlement, a community center in Harlem where Lancaster had spent time as a boy, the 10 Mar 1968 NYT noted. Critical reception was mixed. Commenting on the recent opening in Philadelphia, PA, the 10 Apr 1968 Var stated that The Scalphunters had taken in $20,000, an estimated forty-to-fifty percent less than anticipated due to “emergency measures” that had been taken in the city following Martin Luther King, Jr.’s assassination on 4 Apr 1968, which had stirred racial tension and prompted riots in various U.S. cities. An article in the 1 Jun 1967 Los Angeles Sentinel had previously pointed to The Scalphunters as one of a recent spate, along with Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner and Hotel (1967, see entries), of films addressing racial bigotry “with both seriousness and humor.” Ossie Davis, who played the slave “Joseph Winfield Lee,” had been quoted in the Los Angeles Sentinel article as saying that The Scalphunters “could do as much in its own way for civil rights through humor as the valuable efforts of Roy Wilkins and Martin Luther King.”
The picture was listed in the 8 Jan 1969 Var as one of the “Big Rental Films of 1968,” with cumulative film rentals of $2.8 million, to date.
Fawcett Gold Medal Books published an initial 250,000 copies of a novelization of The Scalphunters written by Ed Friend, according to a 3 Apr 1968 Var item.
An item in the 21 Dec 1966 DV named Dennis Weaver as a potential cast member; the 22 Mar 1967 Var stated that Pancho Villa, Jr. served as Burt Lancaster’s stand-in; and the 25 Jul 1967 LAT noted that Michael Scheff served as producer Jules Levy’s assistant on the picture.
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Los Angeles premiere: 12 March 1968 New York premiere and opening: 2 April 1968 Los Angeles opening: 19 June 1968

Production Date:

began 15 February 1967

Copyright Claimant:

Norlan Productions

Copyright Date:

2 April 1968

Copyright Number:

LP38906

Physical Properties:

Sound

Color

De Luxe

Widescreen/ratio

Panavision

Duration(in mins):

103

Country:

United States

Language:

English

Passed by NBR:

No

SYNOPSIS

Trapper Joe Bass confronts a party of Kiowa Indians. Led by Two Crows, the band compels Bass to exchange mule and furs for fugitive slave Joseph Winfield Lee. Hoping for an opportunity to retrieve his possessions, Bass follows them. While imbibing Bass's whiskey, the Kiowas are ambushed by scalp hunters. Only Two Crows escapes. As Bass stalks the whites, Lee is captured. The slave quickly becomes the favorite of Kate, mistress to leader Jim Howie, and is given freedom of the camp. Aware that the gang's destination is Mexico, where slavery is illegal, Lee has little motivation to escape. Bereft of slave, mule, and furs, Bass launches a campaign of attrition, causing rockfalls, feeding the band's mounts loco weed, and slaying the marauders one by one. Under the pretense of returning the trapper's property, Howie plans an ambush, but is himself slain by Lee. Although Lee has saved Bass, the two immediately quarrel. As they grapple, vengeful Kiowa braves descend upon the remaining scalp hunters, appropriating their women and sparing only slave and trapper. Together Lee and Bass scheme to recover the ...
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Trapper Joe Bass confronts a party of Kiowa Indians. Led by Two Crows, the band compels Bass to exchange mule and furs for fugitive slave Joseph Winfield Lee. Hoping for an opportunity to retrieve his possessions, Bass follows them. While imbibing Bass's whiskey, the Kiowas are ambushed by scalp hunters. Only Two Crows escapes. As Bass stalks the whites, Lee is captured. The slave quickly becomes the favorite of Kate, mistress to leader Jim Howie, and is given freedom of the camp. Aware that the gang's destination is Mexico, where slavery is illegal, Lee has little motivation to escape. Bereft of slave, mule, and furs, Bass launches a campaign of attrition, causing rockfalls, feeding the band's mounts loco weed, and slaying the marauders one by one. Under the pretense of returning the trapper's property, Howie plans an ambush, but is himself slain by Lee. Although Lee has saved Bass, the two immediately quarrel. As they grapple, vengeful Kiowa braves descend upon the remaining scalp hunters, appropriating their women and sparing only slave and trapper. Together Lee and Bass scheme to recover the pelts.
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Seventy-year-old newspaper tycoon Charles Foster Kane dies in his palatial Florida home, Xanadu, after uttering the single word “Rosebud.” While watching a newsreel summarizing the years during which Kane ... >>

The American Film Institute is grateful to Sir Paul Getty KBE and the Sir Paul Getty KBE Estate for their dedication to the art of the moving image and their support for the
AFI Catalog of Feature Films and without whose support AFI would not have been able to achieve this historical landmark in this epic scholarly endeavor.